Wilson, Charles Thomson Rees (1869–1959)

Scottish physicist who, together with Arthur Compton,
was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cloud
chamber.

Wilson was born on a farm in the parish of Glencorse, Midlothian, Scotland.
Upon the death his father died in 1873, his family moved to Manchester and
he was educated at Owen's College, studying biology with the aim of becoming
a physician. He then went to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where his
interests turned to physics and chemistry.

Wilson thereafter became particularly interested in meteorology and, in
1893, began to study clouds and their properties. He worked for a while
at the observatory on Ben Nevis, where he made observations of cloud formation.
He then tried to reproduce this effect on a smaller scale in the laboratory
in Cambridge, expanding humid air within a sealed container. This led to
the development of the cloud chamber in which visible trails were produced
by the passage of ions and radiation.

The cloud chamber is a device for letting charged
particles, too small to be seen, reveal their paths as vapor trails
in the chamber (right) which contains air and water vapor at very
low pressures. The trails are photographed through the top of the
chamber.